


the passing of time

by gfxgf (bless_the_holy_one)



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mental Health Issues, Self-Harm, Self-Mutilation, Siblings, Suicide, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-29
Updated: 2016-05-29
Packaged: 2018-07-10 22:10:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7010221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bless_the_holy_one/pseuds/gfxgf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles was sorry. He said he was sorry what felt like a million times. Every chance he got. Raven had a hard time believing him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the passing of time

**Author's Note:**

> Raven is 18, Charles is older.

Charles was sorry. He said he was sorry what felt like a million times, later. Every chance he got. Raven had a hard time believing him.

 

When she came home and trudged up the stairs after work (so slowly, it made her heart race thinking about it, like watching a car wreck in slow motion), she was thinking about the shoes she left in Charles's bathroom, the other day when he told her not to leave them on the stairs. It was hilarious at the time (absolutely _hilarious_ and you couldn't convince her otherwise). She was going to wear them to a movie, or a party, or for fun. She couldn't remember. She needed them.

 

The door to his bathroom was unlocked. 

 

They have two decades between then and now. Even with all that time, for hindsight, for retracing her steps, she can't say that she suspected anything.

 

Charles was on the floor, sitting upright against the sink. There was blood, obviously. There was a knife. She didn't look too closely at it, at the time, but it was from the kitchen.

 

The first thing he apologized for in the hospital was the blood on her boots. The second thing was her voice, which was hoarse. You know, from all the screaming.

 

He had been pale and clammy and mostly unconscious so Raven-the-younger thought he was dead.

 

He later told her that all the voices, all the emotions that came at him became overwhelming. He knew he wasn't crazy, but this was as good as being crazy, he said to her. That was the gist of it, anyway.

 

He was brought back home a week later, to his mother being unusually nice and his father being unusually present. Nobody knew how to address it. So nobody did.

 

Except Raven, who waited until dark and ran into his room and screamed at him, and then cried, and then screamed some more. She didn't understand. She understands now, a little better, but back then she couldn't understand why he would do that. Be her brother for no reason but to pull this bullshit 10 years later.

 

"I just wanted to sleep."

 

She has nightmares, sometimes. She knows he knows, because the mornings after he smiles at her and makes her breakfast, offers to teach her class if she wants to sleep a little more.

 

Back then, he promised he would never do it again. He never did, that she knew of. She thinks about him, after the school closed and it was just him and Hank. She tries to stop doing that.

 

If he was sorry he would have locked the door. He would have found some pills or jumped off a fucking bridge. He wouldn't have sat there in a pool of his own blood. He wouldn't have left it to her to hold his wrists together and call for help from the empty house.

 

Raven called him a prick and said she loved him. She lay with her head on his shoulder and he hummed a song from the radio. She did not look at the bandages on his wrists, bandaged from wrist to forearm. 

 

Two decades later, she hugs him for the first time since becoming an international woman of mystery.

 

"I'm glad you're not dead."

 

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written a fic since the stone age and its 4am. 
> 
> I don't know if this is universal but from speaking from personal experience, sibling + attempted suicide can drive you nuts.
> 
> If someone else wants to write something with this premise I would be eternally grateful. Writing aint my strong suit.


End file.
